Electrical circuits with transmission lines are typically analyzed to ensure proper functioning of the circuits. The coupling between multiple lines and the resultant coupled signals are an important aspect of these transmission line circuits. Power distribution systems, for example, often must be analyzed for stability and other properties. Similarly, in instrumentation circuits and computer circuitry in tacks or cabinets the noise coupled between transmission lines needs to be understood and minimized.
A number of techniques have been proposed or suggested fob analyzing multiple wire transmission lines. Such techniques are described, for example, in Clayton Paul, Analysis of Multiconductor Transmission Lines, Ch. 5 (Wiley, 1994). While these techniques are suitable for the analysis of models with a few lines, the complexity increases rapidly as the number of lines increases. Some simplified techniques have been proposed to approximate the solution for many transmission lines with only neighbor-to-neighbor wire coupling. These approaches are suitable where reduced accuracy is acceptable to gain speed.
Existing techniques for analyzing multiple wire transmission lines are limited in the number of coupled lines or wires that can be analyzed simultaneously. The complexity of the coupling calculation increases rapidly as the number of lines increases, and the accuracy of the results decreases with the increasing number of lines. Hence, the existing techniques are unable to handle a large number of lines due to excessive computation time and the results become questionable. Some prior art techniques ignore the couplings for more than two lines to speed up the process. Other techniques are based on having only linear circuits to speed up the calculation process and are therefore unsuitable for handling even typical transmission line circuits, which include surrounding nonlinear drivers and receivers.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/776,716, entitled “System and Method For Efficient Analysis of Transmission Lines,” incorporated by reference herein, discloses “Transversal Waveform Relaxation” techniques for analyzing multiple wire transmission lines by determining which sources influence each of a plurality of transmission lines, based on coupling factors. Transmission line parameters are computed based on the sources, which influence each transmission line. A transient or frequency response is analyzed for each transmission line by segmenting each line to perform an analysis on that line. The step of analyzing is repeated using waveforms determined in a previous iteration until convergence to a resultant waveform has occurred. For a more detailed discussion of such Transversal Waveform Relaxation techniques, see, for example, Nakhla et al., “Simulation of Coupled Interconnects Using Waveform Relaxation and Transverse Partitioning,” EPEP'04, Vol 13, pp 25-28, Portland, Oreg., October 2004, incorporated by reference herein.
While such Transversal Waveform Relaxation techniques have greatly improved the analysis of multiple wile transmission lines and provide an efficient approach for transverse decoupling of transmission lines, they suffer from a number of limitations, which if overcome, could provide further improvements. In particular, the connectors in such transmission lines are still coupled. A need therefore exists for a Transversal Waveform Relaxation algorithm that decouples entire paths from each other.